Jorpho wrote:So, are Americans typically familiar with Garfield at all? I could barely tell you anything about him.

The United States was briefly ruled by a cat. That's so awesome. And man history is *weird*.

<serious> Former historian here.

History is big. Really big. You just won't believe how vastly, hugely, mind-bogglingly big it is. I mean, you may think it's a lot going on just on your Facebook feed, but that's just peanuts to history. Mostly historians look at the shiny and interesting bits and ignore everything else. Except for the historians who think that everything else is shiny and interesting, and find a little tiny section or idea to focus on and polish up.</serious>

Jorpho wrote:So, are Americans typically familiar with Garfield at all? I could barely tell you anything about him.

They should be. The story of Garfield—and not just the assassination, but the whole political situation leading up to it, as well as the aftermath—has got to be one of the most utterly bizarre series of events in American history, through and through. It's a fascinating, tragic, and just utterly weird slow-motion train wreck that you can't tear your eyes away from once you start reading about it. Or at least, that's the way I feel about it.

I'd write up a punchy little narrative about it sensationalizing all the crazy bits, but I'm really tired and I need to get up in the morning, so sadly I haven't got time right now. Maybe I'll do it tomorrow if I end up having some free time.

Durandal_1707 wrote:I'd write up a punchy little narrative about it sensationalizing all the crazy bits, but I'm really tired and I need to get up in the morning, so sadly I haven't got time right now. Maybe I'll do it tomorrow if I end up having some free time.

Please do! I finding interestingly-written historical anecdotes and analyses endlessly fascinating. If my history books in school were written like some of the Quora answers I’ve enjoyed reading, I probably would have cared about history a little more...

Yes, far too often the "story" part of history is neglected in the teaching, boiling it down to a boring series of dates and trivia nobody will remember after the test is over.

What started to get me interested in history was the fictional histories of worlds like J.R.R. Tolkien's Ea, and how one story set in the distant past of another story is important and relevant to the later story. Realizing that real history works like that too turned it from my least favorite subject from school into one of the most fascinating things I peruse just for fun.

Also, in college I had to take a Native American History class taught by a professor who was part Native American herself and delivered in an entertaining way that I could imagine resembles how oral histories were passed down in her culture before they had writing, really conveying the emotion and humanity of the people involved. That helped a lot too.

I fear that just removing the even or the odd years is insufficient. I propose further simplifying things by removing all non-Leap Years (notice how I carefully kept my birth year in the 'retained' list). And since we all know how screwed up Time-Date functions are, add further exceptions that we will include any Leap Year in which either the BoSox or the Cubbies won the Series.

Hmmmm....We all know about 'those who cannot remember history are condemned to repeat it" or words to that effect. What about parts of history which never happened? Do those get repeated?

I got some major Read The Flesh Between The Lines vibes from this comic.

Were there eight kings of the name of Henry in England, or were there eighty? Never mind; someday it will be recorded that there was only one, and the attributes of all of them will be combined into his compressed and consensus story.

But it makes sense that history is so big; with nearly twenty million years of subjective experience per day, trying to cram everything into twenty-four hours of history is bound to cause problems somewhere.

jonhaug wrote:By the way, I guess being an American president is one of the most dangerous occupations you can have. (I have crossed it out of my list.)

I once read somewhere that, up until then (early 1980s if I remember correctly), all the U.S. presidents who had been elected in years ending in 0 had died while in office. If true, that would imply a mortality rate of 20%, which is indeed grim, although not as bad as certain wartime occupations (like being on German submarines in WWII).

That pattern did not hold, though. Ronald Reagan, first elected in 1980, was shot but survived the assassination attempt, and George Bush jr., first elected in 2000, was never in danger of dying in office, unless you count the choking-on-a-pretzel incident.

Please, let's eliminate the even years in the BCE/CE scheme. We've already lost the year Zero--something that bothers me more and more as I stumble along the timeline of history.

As a bonus, losing 1660 would be a small comfort to me. That was the year my namesake "hanged with his face looking towards the Banqueting-house at Whitehall, (the place where our late Sovereign of eternal memory was sacrificed) being half dead, he was cut down by the common Executioner, his Privy Members cut off before his eyes, his Bowels burned, his Head severed from his Body, and his Body divided into Quarters, which were returned back to Newgate upon the same Hurdle that carried it. His Head is since set on a Pole on the top of the South-East end of Westminster-Hall, looking towards London. The Quarters of his Body are in like manner exposed upon some of the City Gates."

So, I think it would be fine to edit history and leave some of this creepy, gratuitous violence on the cutting room floor.

GlassHouses wrote:I once read somewhere that, up until then (early 1980s if I remember correctly), all the U.S. presidents who had been elected in years ending in 0 had died while in office. If true, that would imply a mortality rate of 20%, which is indeed grim, although not as bad as certain wartime occupations (like being on German submarines in WWII).

Not quite. The "zero factor" didn't begin until 1840, supposedly a result of a curse placed on that year's winner, William Henry Harrison by the Injuns he had done bad white-people things to. Presidents Jefferson (elected in 1800) and Monroe (re-elected virtually unopposed in 1820) weren't subject to it.

Jorpho wrote:[url=https://xkcd.com/1979]So, are Americans typically familiar with Garfield at all? I could barely tell you anything about him.

Even to Americans with a pretty good sense of the presidential timeline, Garfield is part of a murky era of presidential history where not many people can tell you who followed whom or in what years. Lincoln is the Civil War president, that's easy, and he was followed by Andrew Johnson who was famous only for being impeached, and then Grant, which begins a stretch of about 30-some years between Grant and Teddy Roosevelt where even in AP History class we learned them as the Do-Nothing presidents.

I would say Garfield's legacy was probably hurt by serving only a few months, but then Arthur and Harrison had full terms or close to it and nobody can tell you anything they did.

Pfhorrest wrote:What started to get me interested in history was the fictional histories of worlds like J.R.R. Tolkien's Ea, and how one story set in the distant past of another story is important and relevant to the later story. Realizing that real history works like that too turned it from my least favorite subject from school into one of the most fascinating things I peruse just for fun.

Whenever I watch the LOTR trilogy and they show some ancient place like Osgiliath, or Amon Hen, I have the exact same feeling as when I stand in places like the Roman Forum: I'm constantly wishing I could see the place as it was in the past and the goings-on of the time. The big important historical things as well as the mundane. The past is amazing. Mind-blowing, even. We have ancient things that were ancient to people who built other ancient things. Layers upon layers of history. You see these ruins, with things like ancient ceramic tiles still on them and quite intact, and you realize people lived their whole lives here, had things and people and beliefs and memories that were very very important to them just as we do, and it just whacks you with a perspective brick. The past is so much more interesting than the future, even fictional pasts of fictional worlds. The future is coming, whether we like it or not - I've never seen the purpose in trying to rush it. The past is what's always at risk - the more of it we lose, the more of the richness of humanity's collective experience that disappears.

sonar1313 wrote:... a stretch of about 30-some years between Grant and Teddy Roosevelt where even in AP History class we learned them as the Do-Nothing presidents.

You describe, essentially, the full-facial-hair era of the U.S. presidency, when it was acceptable to sprout both beard and mustache, 1869-1893. Executive hirsuteness started in 1861 with a beard-no-mustache and ended in 1913 with a mustache-no-beard, but it was clearly that middle period, when it was acceptable to do no shaving at all, that correlates strongly to the the Do-Nothing era.

Pfhorrest wrote:Yes, far too often the "story" part of history is neglected in the teaching, boiling it down to a boring series of dates and trivia nobody will remember after the test is over.

You nailed it. When we were learning about the world wars in middle school I really couldn't have cared less and I hated memorizing dates. But actually the situations of different countries and what events transpired is all really fascinating and I've realized that later in life.

sonar1313 wrote:... a stretch of about 30-some years between Grant and Teddy Roosevelt where even in AP History class we learned them as the Do-Nothing presidents.

You describe, essentially, the full-facial-hair era of the U.S. presidency, when it was acceptable to sprout both beard and mustache, 1869-1893. Executive hirsuteness started in 1861 with a beard-no-mustache and ended in 1913 with a mustache-no-beard, but it was clearly that middle period, when it was acceptable to do no shaving at all, that correlates strongly to the the Do-Nothing era.

As a bearded person, I'm depressed to learn that I'll amount to nothing.

sonar1313 wrote:... a stretch of about 30-some years between Grant and Teddy Roosevelt where even in AP History class we learned them as the Do-Nothing presidents.

You describe, essentially, the full-facial-hair era of the U.S. presidency, when it was acceptable to sprout both beard and mustache, 1869-1893. Executive hirsuteness started in 1861 with a beard-no-mustache and ended in 1913 with a mustache-no-beard, but it was clearly that middle period, when it was acceptable to do no shaving at all, that correlates strongly to the the Do-Nothing era.

As a bearded person, I'm depressed to learn that I'll amount to nothing.

Clearly each historian should roll 4D10 (i.e. a 10000-sided die) and study the events from WXYZ y.a.

Plus maybe four distinct D6 rolls (or three and a dedicated D3) and two different D10s to narrow down the geographical epicentre?

Hmm, 1, 1, 5, 4(=2) in D6s and 4, 10 in D10s… That's 3°W (by my system, of 0(*60) ,0(*10),3(*1), no need to wrap around) and 49°N (ditto, 4(*30),1(*10),9(*1), all offset -90). So, I'm obviously studying the English Channel for the year… (2018-2225) = 218 BCE. Actually, for a genuinely random pick1, that year sounds interesting, as it looks like I'd be looking at the general pan-celtic response to Hannibal's victories over the Roman Empire, if the Gallic bush-telegraph sends enough news of the meeting on the Rhone.

1 With statistical bias towards upper latitudes, compared with surface area, due to more density of result. A better radomiser would be to establish an equipotent three-axis approach, manually cull/reroll any combined coordinated that lies radially further away from the centre point than a purely single-orthagonal displacement would, and convert that into theta,phi (lat/lon) position without further regard to r.

da Doctah wrote:They're not giving presidents interesting middle names these days like they used to. When was the last time you met someone with a name like Burchard, Milhous, or Gamaliel?

I agree that "John" is a little disappointing, but what's wrong with Hussein, Walker or Jefferson?

Still, giving a kid a weird middle name is lazy. Republicans have traditionally been better at having weird first names like Newt, Mitt, Rand, Condoleezza, or Spiro. But Barack is pretty much out there too.

Pfhorrest wrote:Yes, far too often the "story" part of history is neglected in the teaching, boiling it down to a boring series of dates and trivia nobody will remember after the test is over.

You nailed it. When we were learning about the world wars in middle school I really couldn't have cared less and I hated memorizing dates. But actually the situations of different countries and what events transpired is all really fascinating and I've realized that later in life.

My love for history came from my Dad (a history major turned MBA) who would tell history as a bedtime story, or just talk about it over dinner. I learned it more as a study of how people during oldentimes thought and why they acted as they did rather than just what happened. The why is always more interesting than the what to me... It's also why I like physics. I don't just want to know that the light turns on when I flick the switch, I want to know what makes it happen. History can be explained the same way. It helped that after history class I'd discuss the current topic with my Dad and get my fix of 'why' after learning the 'what' in school.

DeGuerre wrote:Think about how much has been written about World War II. How many volumes of text, how many hours of documentary and fictionalised history, how many photographs, how much oral history...

Then remember: That was six years of history. In case you've forgotten just how little time six years is, it's this long ago.

Admittedly, this could be the most written-about six years in world history ever, but it isn't exhausted yet. My point is, this is an indication of how much could be written.

sonar1313 wrote:When's the last time you met someone with just one letter for a middle name? "S" might just top them all.

Granted.

I highly recommend the hilarious Assassination Vacation by Sarah Vowell, probably best known here as the voice of Invisi-Girl in Disney's The Incredibles. As you can see in the link, the audiobook has an unbelievably all-star cast.